Page 83 - Big Idea

The Big Idea – Act 3

RIVAL 2: (as UTOPIAN begins working near left) Ah! At last: now
I can really bash his head in! (picks up club and sneaks toward
UTOPIAN)

UTOPIAN: Now, let me see: I don’t want to start too close to the
edge of the cliff.

WOMAN 4: (runs up behind RIVAL 2 and hits him with stick) No,
you don’t, you coward!

RIVAL 2: Yaargh! (off-balance, tumbles off to left)

UTOPIAN: Where did he come from?

WOMAN 4: (throws down stick) Where do you think? They had
already decided to kill you if you wouldn’t leave.

UTOPIAN: Kill me? Why? I’m not hurting anyone.

WOMAN 4: Like he said, you don’t get it. Look: if your Big Idea
had succeeded, most of the people in our old group would have left it
and come over to you. Did you really think the chief and his men
would just sit there waiting for that to happen?

UTOPIAN: But they could have come, too. I don’t want to exclude
anyone. They’d be better off in a rational community, just like the
rest of us.

WOMAN 4: You poor fool. Can’t you get it into your head that they
don’t want to give up their power and position, no matter how
beautiful your idea might be? Even if we had started to build a wall,
they would have come and torn it down. You can’t win.

UTOPIAN: (looks down cliff) I never dreamed they’d try to kill me
over this.

WOMAN 4: Now it looks like we’ve killed one of them.

UTOPIAN: We?

WOMAN 4: Now, listen to me, you big idiot: I didn’t stick my neck
out for you because of The Big Idea. I saved your life because, well,
I’m kind of sweet on you, do you understand?
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